Magnetic alphabet learning board

2. Zero
Apparently the Greeks and the Romans never used zero. How is this possible? Invented by the ancient Babylonians, it is without question the greatest number in the world. It’s the number of species of bats who are actually blind (out of 1200 species). It was Henry VI’s age when he became King of England (he was nine months old). Also when he became King of France (he was eleven months old). It’s the total number of snakes in Ireland (except pets). It’s the average number of times per second that an albatross flaps its wings (it can spend up to six days just gliding on air currents).

3. Three
Three is seen as a creepy number in some cultures. In Vietnam, it’s apparently bad luck to have three people in a photo as the one in the middle might die. Oh well – I like it. It’s the number of people who have been to the very bottom of the ocean (the Mariana Trench). Compare that to the 534 people who have been in space. It’s (on average) the number of days you can survive without water, the number of weeks you can survive without eating and the number of minutes you can survive without taking a breath.

4. Four
Four percent of people in the world have “outtie” belly buttons. And do you know how old Dorothy Straight was when she published her first book (How the World Began)? That’s right, four. It’s the number of people who live in each square kilometre in Canada (in the UK it’s 265 people, in Hong Kong it’s 7,000). It’s the number of miles per second – PER SECOND! – that space junk goes as it whizzes around Earth (that’s why a tiny speck of it can destroy a space ship).

5. Five
Five is great. It’s the number of babies born every second. Here come another five. And another. It’s the length in metres of a Great White Shark. It’s also the average number of people who die from shark attacks every year (compared to the 100 million sharks a year killed by humans). It’s the number of mass extinctions that the Earth has experienced (number five killed off the dinosaurs). The world’s largest hula hoop was five metres wide (Ashrita Furman managed to spin it 3¾ times).

6. Seven
Ah, Number Seven. It’s seen as lucky or mystical in some cultures. It crops up all the time. Seven days of the week. Seven Deadly Sins. Seven Dwarves too. It’s also the number of TVs Michel Lotito ate in the course of his life (plus 18 bicycles, 15 shopping trolleys and 1 Cessna light aircraft). It’s the estimated number of Northern white rhinos there are left in the world. It’s the number of teaspoons of botulinum you would need to kill every person on the planet (Botulinum is the world’s deadliest poison. Some people inject a watered-down version of it – botox – into their foreheads to kill their wrinkles. Don’t try this at home).

7. 10
Human children need around 10 hours of sleep a night (you’d need two hours if you were a giraffe and twenty-two hours if you were a koala). 10 per cent of the world is left-handed. The world’s largest omelette was 10 metres wide. 10 per cent of people in the world live on islands. The fleas that lived on dinosaurs were 10 times bigger than the fleas you get today (not you personally – at least I hope not).

8. 1,000,000
These days, when we have trillions, quadrillions and septillions, a good old-fashioned million can seem a bit puny. But it’s still a big deal if you like weird facts. For example, a bloodhound’s sense of smell is said to be one million times stronger than ours (and given that we can detect one trillion different smells, that’s not to be sniffed at). One million years ago, the first human-type creature (or hominid) arrived in the UK – according to these footprints on a Norfolk beach. It’s the number of queen ants that were found in the largest ever ants’ nest (the supercolony also had 306 million worker ants and was the size of 650 football pitches).

9. 1,000,000,000
In the UK, a billion used to be a million million (1,000,000,000,000). But the US decided a billion should be a thousand million (1,000,000,000). And they’re bigger than us, so they won. So… a billion. It’s the number of people there were in the whole world in the year 1800 (there are seven billion now). It’s the number of bacteria cells you’d find in a single teaspoon of soil (most of them are harmless though). And is $1 billion a lot of money? Not if you’re criminal Pablo Escobar. Rats ate $1 billion of his money every year and he didn’t even notice.